1954 in Canada

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← 1953 1952 1951 1954 in Canada → 1955 1956 1957
Decades:	1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s
See also:	History of Canada Timeline of Canadian history List of years in Canada

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Events from the year 1954 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Elizabeth II^[1]

Federal government

• Governor General – Vincent Massey^[2]
• Prime Minister – Louis St. Laurent
• Chief Justice – Thibaudeau Rinfret (Quebec) (until 22 June) then Patrick Kerwin (Ontario)
• Parliament – 22nd

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Alberta – John J. Bowlen
• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Clarence Wallace
• John Stewart McDiarmid
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – David Laurence MacLaren
• Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland – Leonard Outerbridge
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Alistair Fraser
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Louis Orville Breithaupt
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Thomas William Lemuel Prowse
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Gaspard Fauteux
• Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan – William John Patterson

Premiers

• Premier of Alberta – Ernest Manning
• W.A.C. Bennett
• Premier of Manitoba – Douglas Campbell
• Premier of New Brunswick – Hugh John Flemming
• Premier of Newfoundland – Joey Smallwood
• Premier of Nova Scotia – Angus Macdonald (until April 13) then Harold Connolly (April 13 to September 30) then Henry Hicks
• Premier of Ontario – Leslie Frost
• Alex Matheson
• Premier of Quebec – Maurice Duplessis
• Premier of Saskatchewan – Tommy Douglas

Territorial governments

Commissioners

• Commissioner of Yukon – Wilfred George Brown
• Commissioner of Northwest Territories – Robert Gordon Robertson

• January 1 – Metropolitan Toronto comes into being to coordinate services among the various municipalities around Toronto.
• January 8 – The first
  Sarnia
  through the new pipeline
• March 30 – The
  Yonge St. subway, the first subway system in Canada, opens in Toronto
• April 13 – Angus Lewis Macdonald, Premier of Nova Scotia, dies in office
• April 14 – Harold Connolly becomes premier of Nova Scotia
• May 31 –
  CBWT a CBC Television
  owned and operated station, begins broadcasting
• August 10 – The groundbreaking ceremony for the St. Lawrence Seaway begins
• September 9 - The
  1954 Series of banknotes
  is introduced.
• September 9 – Marilyn Bell becomes the first person to swim Lake Ontario
• September 18 –
  Marie-Victorin Statue
  unveiled
• September 30 – Henry Hicks becomes premier of Nova Scotia, replacing Harold Connolly
• October 15 – Hurricane Hazel hits Toronto killing 81.

Full date unknown

• Canada contributes to a peacekeeping force in Indochina
• Sir Adam Beck Generating Station built on the Canadian side of the Niagara River
• Pinetree Line radar system completed
• Yahtzee is invented by a Canadian couple
• Jean Drapeau first elected mayor of Montreal
• Streetcars leave Winnipeg

• Mordecai Richler – The Acrobats
• Gabrielle Roy – Alexandre Chenevert
• Igor Gouzenko – The Fall of a Titan

Awards

• See 1954 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Stephen Leacock Award: Joan Walker
  , Pardon My Parka

• April 16 - The Detroit Red Wings win their sixth Stanley Cup by defeating the Montreal Canadiens 4 games to 3.
• May 16 - The Ontario Hockey Association's St. Catharines Teepees win their first Memorial Cup by defeating the Central Alberta Hockey League's Edmonton Oil Kings 4 games to 0 (with 1 tie). All games were played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto
• July 30 – The Miracle Mile is run at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver. Empire Stadium is opened on the same day.
• August 28 - The BC Lions are established. This event is often seen as the beginning of the Canadian Football League despite the league being established three years later
• November 27 - The
  Edmonton Eskimos win their first Grey Cup by defeating the Montreal Alouettes 26 to 25 in the 42nd Grey Cup played at Varsity Stadium in Toronto

January to June

• January 11 – Jim Wych, snooker player and sports announcer
• January 29 – Doug Risebrough, ice hockey player and coach
• February 3 – Tiger Williams, ice hockey player
• February 24 – Sid Meier, Canadian-American programmer
• March 2 – Ed Johnstone, ice hockey player
• March 4 – Catherine O'Hara, actress
• April 5 - Claude-André Lachance, politician and son of Georges-C. Lachance
• April 7 – Clark Gillies, ice hockey player (d. 2022)
• April 17 – Roddy Piper, wrestler and actor (d. 2015)
• April 20 – Gilles Lupien, ice hockey player and agent (d. 2021)
• May 4 – Sylvia Burka, ice speed skater and World Champion, cyclist
• May 10 – Eleni Bakopanos, politician
• May 13 – David Bissett, field hockey player
• May 14 – Danny Gare, ice hockey player
• May 16 – Dafydd Williams, physician and astronaut
• May 26 – Aritha Van Herk, writer, critic, editor and university professor
• May 28 – John Tory, businessman, politician and broadcaster
• June 3 – Wally Weir, Canadian ice hockey player
• June 28 – Jean-Serge Brisson, politician

July to December

• July 6 – Brian Pallister, politician
• July 9 – Kevin O'Leary, businessman, television personality, and political candidate
• July 18 – Audrey Vandervelden, volleyball player
• August 11 – Gulzar Singh Cheema, politician

• August 16 – James Cameron, film director, producer and screenwriter
• September 3 – Avis Gray, politician
• September 18 – Steven Pinker, cognitive psychologist
• October 21 – Brian Tobin, politician
• November 7 – Guy Gavriel Kay, fantasy fiction author
• November 12 – Dave Edge, long-distance runner
• November 24 – Stuart Murray, politician
• December 14 –
  Steven MacLean
  , astronaut
• December 20 – John Kinch, football player (d. 2022)
• December 28 – Lanny Poffo, wrestler (d. 2023)

Full date unknown

• Alan Kane
  , author
• Jim St. James, actor and HIV/AIDS activist

Deaths

• January 24 –
  H. H. Wrong, diplomat (b. 1894
  )
• February 13 – Agnes Macphail, politician, first woman to be elected to the House of Commons of Canada (b. 1890)
• March 15 – Charles MacOdrum, politician
• March 31 – John Walter Jones, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (b. 1878)
• April 4 –
  Abraham Albert Heaps, politician and labor leader (b. 1885
  )
• April 8 – Winnifred Eaton, author (b. 1875)
• April 13 – Angus Lewis Macdonald, lawyer, law professor, politician and 19th Premier of Nova Scotia (b. 1890)
• June 18 – Welland Gemmell, politician and Minister
• August 6 –
  Dionne Quintuplets (b. 1934
  )
• November 26 – Wallace Rupert Turnbull, engineer and inventor (b. 1870)

Full date unknown

• James Endicott, church leader and missionary (b. 1865
  )

• 1954 in Canadian television
• List of Canadian films

References